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A Muslim man accused of whipping his protegee 40 times with an electric cable for drinking alcohol said he inflicted the punishment out of love, a Sydney court has been told.

Wassim Fayad allegedly told his victim Cristian Martinez, “Next time you think of picking up a drink, you will remember this pain,” Burwood Local Court was told on Monday.

Fayad, 44, Zakaryah Raad, 21, Tolga Cifci, 21, and Cengiz Coskun, 22, have pleaded not guilty over the alleged incident in Mr Martinez’s Silverwater apartment in western Sydney between July 16 and July 17 last year.

They have been charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company and stealing CCTV footage.

Mr Martinez, 32, had been introduced to the Islamic faith several years before and had come to regard Fayad, also known as Fadi Alemaddin, as his spiritual leader, prosecutor Sevinch Morkaya said.

After Mr Martinez got drunk and took cocaine, he called Fayad, telling him, “I’m in trouble” and “I need to get off the drugs”.

In one of several phone calls played in court, Fayad could be heard replying, “It means I’m going to tie you up, brother, because that’s what you need.”

Mr Martinez told the court he had no memory of the phone calls.

That night, Raad called around to Mr Martinez’s apartment and later let the other three men in before they woke up a sleeping Mr Martinez, the court heard.

Mr Martinez said he was friends with Raad, but he had only seen the other two men on a couple of occasions and didn’t know their names.

“(Fayad) told me I was going to be punished under Islamic law for what I’d been doing with drugs and alcohol,” Mr Martinez said.

“I was a bit stirred up but I always believed in him.”

Mr Martinez said Raad and the other two men then held him down on the bed while Fayad started hitting him with an electric cable.

“I was begging, ‘please no more, I don’t want any more’,” he said.

After the first ten lashes, the men let Mr Martinez go and he vomited while they held a wet towel on his back before he agreed to return to the bed, the court heard.

“They didn’t force me,” he said.

However, Mr Martinez said he soon began begging and crying again and, after he vomited following the 20th lash, he was forced back onto the bed.

“I knew I had done the wrong thing, but I couldn’t believe I was getting these hits,” he said.

Mr Martinez said he was told he should be getting 80 lashes for intoxication and that only the infirm were given 40 lashes.

After it was over, the court heard Fayad told Mr Martinez, “I did it because I love you”.

Authorities have closed nine churches and six Buddhist temples in Banda Aceh in the last week, following mounting pressure from local Islamist groups, activists and church officials said on Sunday.

Theophilus Bela, chairman of Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, said that the churches’ priests were forced to sign a statement to close their churches. Officials from the province that applies Shariah law supposedly made the demands in a meeting that was attended by several Islamic organizations, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

“It’s a blatant act of intolerance,” Theophilus said.

The churches include the Indonesian Bethel Church (GBI), the Pantekosta Church and the Indonesia Christian Church.

Nico Tarigan, a priest and head of GBI church, acknowledged that the permit needed for the church to remain open had not been issued from the mayor’s office, even though the paperwork for the permit had been submitted a long time ago.

“We admit we have not had the permit,” he said by telephone. “But they can’t just close down our church. We have 80 members that don’t know where to pray.”

Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, Banda Aceh deputy mayor, said that the nine churches and six temples have violated the city’s regulation, and should be closed down.

“The congregation members can join churches that have secured permits,” he said. “As a province that applies Islamist law, Aceh has a special law on this issue.”

He also called on Aceh’s Christians to respect the law.

However, Nico said that other churches were not necessarily open to members from other congregations.

“We hope there is a better solution from the Aceh government,” Nico said. “We have no motive to compete with other religions or ruin Islamic teaching. We have been here for eight years. They can ask local officials if we have done damage to Islamic teaching.”

“The FPI will continue to monitor these illegal churches and temples so that they don’t resume their activities,” said FPI chairman Yusuf Al-Qardhawy.

Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims angry over an alleged derogatory photo of the Islamic holy book Koran on Facebook set fires in at least ten Buddhist temples and 40 homes near the southern border with Myanmar, authorities said yesterday.

The violence began late on Saturday and continued until early yesterday, said Nojibul Islam, a police chief in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar.

He said at least 20 people were injured in the attacks that followed the posting of a Facebook photo of a burned copy of the Koran. The rioters blamed the photo on a local Buddhist boy.

Bangladesh’s English-language Daily Star newspaper quoted the boy as saying that the photo was mistakenly tagged on his Facebook profile. The newspaper reported that soon after the violence broke out, the boy’s Facebook account was closed and police escorted him and his mother to safety.

Joinul Bari, chief government administrator in Cox’s Bazar district, said authorities detained the boy’s parents and were investigating.

Buddhists make up less than 1 per cent of Muslim-majority Bangladesh’s 150 million people.

The Bangladeshi violence follows protests that erupted in a number of Muslim countries over the past month after a low-budget film, Innocence of Muslims, produced by a US citizen, denigrated the Prophet Muhammad.

It is a sordid tale: A 16-year-old girl is groped while walking along the street. She responds by spitting in her attacker’s face, vowing to take back her rights. He, in turn, guns her down with an automatic weapon.

That is what is alleged to have happened to Eman Mostafa two weeks ago in a small village in Upper Egypt’s Assiut Governorate. While details of the incident have only slowly trickled out, the monstrosity of the alleged crime suggests a frightening increase in gendered violence following a spate of well-publicized cases of harassment and assault in recent months.

The suspect, Ramadan Nasser Salem, is now in police custody after having fled for more than a week. In an interview on Al-Hayat TV channel Saturday, he denied the version of events offered by witnesses.

“I was riding my motorbike and I saw her,” he said. “I said hello, and she thought I was harassing her and started cursing at me and spat in my face. I mistakenly fired my gun, and a passer-by told me the bullet hit a wall. We thought the girl was afraid and fell on the ground, but then people told us that the bullet hit her. I never meant to kill her.” Continue reading →

The massive amount of Non-working Muslims will collapse a socialist system

Madrid riot police have cleared Plaza de Neptune of protesters, with about 200 officers securing the surrounding blocks. At least 60 people have been injured and 26 arrested as police used batons and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Local emergency services have confirmed that at least 60 people, including eight policemen, were injured in clashes between police and protesters, El Pais reports. One of the wounded is believed to be in critical condition, while one of the injured policemen suffered a severe concussion.

Riot police dispersed the protesters, dragging some who had tried to get through police lines by their arms and legs. An uneasy order was restored and reinforcements were brought in to try and disperse the crowd.

Islamist Fanatics murdered the US ambassador and three others including two US Marines at the US embassyin Benghazi Libya last night, Photo from KSFO-AM.

Sept. 12, 2012, that last night, radical Islamists attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi with rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire. They killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, then dragged his body through the streets. “The latest reports say that he did not die of gunshot wounds, but of suffocation, that would mean that he was likely manually killed.”

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens Was Killed and His Body Dragged Through The Streets of Libya By Muslim Fanatics What Now Obama? Photo from KSFO-AM. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three embassy staff were killed as they rushed away from the consulate building, stormed by al Qaeda-linked gunmen blaming America for a film that they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad. Stevens was trying to leave the consulate building for a safer location as part of an evacuation when gunmen launched an intense attack, apparently forcing security personnel to withdraw.

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens Was Killed and His Body Dragged Through The Streets of Libya By Muslim Fanatics What Now Obama? Photo from KSFO-AM.

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens Was Killed and His Body Dragged Through The Streets of Libya By Muslim Fanatics What Now Obama? Photo from KSFO-AM.